Is there any evidence that he has been a bad husband for past 27 years? Or are you claiming he's going to abandon his family after this announcement?
Philip Schofield
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
No, what's happened is that he's lived with something eating away at him for many years and he's finally gotten to a place where he can embrace who he truly is, and live life to the fullest.
I agree all situations are different but ultimately the end goal is a man has lived his life under the pretence he's heterosexual when he must have known he wasn't.
The issue to me isn't the fact he's homosexual, that's perfectly fine and his choice in life. We live in a society and age where people rightfully feel it's fine to be more open and live how the life they are supposed to have rather than live a life they feel they should have to conform to a certain stereotype.
It's the people that get damaged in the crossfire whilst these people do their damage that bothers me. Whether she's known for a while or not it must have been incredibly painful to find out someone you've devoted nearly three decades to is going to go and live a completely different life than you could ever give him.
So based on those facts and from my own personal opinion people congratulating him are wrong, fair enough he's got the life he want's and should have had but show more respect for those left to wonder why.
Yeah, can't have anything to do with repressing or denying huge aspects of yourself being extremely bad for your mental health, must have been the sex thing.
Christ on a fecking bike.
When have I said he was a bad husband?
I've never said that but leaving your wife to sleep alone night after night whilst you pursue a life you should have had 40 years earlier is abandoning your family in some way or form.
I'm not saying he's not going to be a father, but the reality is the family life they once had is now changed forever.
Some awful posts in this thread, it amazes me that some people still see others sexuality as so obviously black or white and make all manner of judgements off the back of it.
Found it all very emotional and It seems like he, his wife and his kids are doing their best, maturely and lovingly in a very difficult situation.
As Rel and others stated, sexual preferences don't define a relationship, to say the entire marriage is a lie, waste, sham or whatever else is so ignorant.
I'm quite sure people wouldn't be so appalled, judgemental or insulted on his wife's behalf if it was any other celebrity caught cheating or acting poorly in their heterosexual relationship. Doubt an eyebrow would be raised, and why is that?
Found it all very emotional and It seems like he, his wife and his kids are doing their best, maturely and lovingly in a very difficult situation.
As Rel and others stated, sexual preferences don't define a relationship, to say the entire marriage is a lie, waste, sham or whatever else is so ignorant.
I'm quite sure people wouldn't be so appalled, judgemental or insulted on his wife's behalf if it was any other celebrity caught cheating or acting poorly in their heterosexual relationship. Doubt an eyebrow would be raised, and why is that?
His statement makes it quite clear he cares about his family a lot. Can't blame him for finally trying to be at peace with himself I reckon Must be hard for his wife but they must have had loads of discussions about this. If she was going to break down I doubt he would have done it
This is a stunningly ignorant take.
I just typed out a lot of paragraphs before deleting the whole thing as I think soap-boxing here isn't wise of me to do. There was a post in here by @diarm that has given food for thought. More the second paragraph, but overall, it's fair comment.
I will still object to the bolded, however. You can't know whether that is the case for her, the 'very small part' bit.
You've made two major assumptions about an incredibly complex situation that you have no evidence for, and they are incredibly insulting to gay men and wives. Your aunt had a particular experience. It won't have been uncommon, it won't have been the norm. In any case until you know the facts of this case, your assessment of his or her experience of it is nothing more than fiction.
You don't know what homosexuality is like. At all. And you won't know. That's a hard thing to accept with the culture straight men have been brought up in, we've been told our way of life is the right way, and little by little that reality has been chopped away at, but it still exists as a baseline assumption on most things. You intuitively think that you know, if you were in his situation, you would know you're gay. And by extension of course he knew he was gay. Your intuition is wrong about a lot of things and it is wrong about this. You would know that if you took the assumption that you had no idea how it would feel, and simply asked enough people who have actually had that experience.
Agreed. Neither you or I know how important sex was to her. I just described the consensus based on the available evidence, from decades of studies. Sex is not unimportant but in general it is not that important.
That's just an assumption, I personally think anyone abandoning a family is a lousy piece of shite regardless of sexuality. If you're not into the person you are with be honest and be a man/women about it and let them down softly. Don't wait 30 years to destroy any nice memories you had together because of doubt.
From WHO?!? Most people I know thought he was gay anyway
You just accused him of destroying his family, when he has been supportive and mentions that he still loves them.
As Penna mentions in her post, coming out 40 years ago is a completely different proposition to current situation. And if you can't understand this, no point having this conversation. And frankly it doesn't matter.
Between this, and the Woodward/Ashton conspiracy thread, I'm beginning to think that eyesight is overrated.
I'm sure he does still love them why wouldn't he.
But he doesn't love his wife the way he was supposed to during his wedding vows.
I can see that those morals are lost on you though so I will leave my argument here.
"Sex" encompasses a lot more than the physical act, though. There's a potential minefield for her to deal with there and potentially a hell of a lot of realignment to process, and, hopefully for her sake, come out the other side intact from.
It's interesting to see some people dress up their homophobia as concern for his wife and children.
Honestly made me laugh.
I work with Muslim lad who had to climb the gate to get into the office at 6am the other day as he'd forgotten the gate key. His description when we got into work was I wonder what people thought when they saw an Asian man climbing a gate at 6am in the morning!!
Exactly the same as they would if it was a white man!!!
Maybe people just have a different opinion rather than homophobia.
I don’t know how anybody can watch that and not see how much of a painful process this has been for him and not have an incredible amount of sympathy.
No because he would be divorcing her for the same reason.
So if he had divorced her first, would that be morally better?
I understand why you don't think soap-boxing is wise but without elaborating it's impossible to know what you mean. A "potential minefield", "realignment" and "come out the other side of" sounds quite dramatic, and it's hard to know how to interpret them without the substance informing them.
The majority of relationships exist in a reality where the other person is attracted to other people, and they both live in denial of it. In many cases people have to resist their primal urges in doing so. A large proportion of those lead to one person acting on that attraction and abusing the trust, breaking the commitment, disrupting the family and deeply hurting the other person, making them feel diminished, making them re-evaluate their life choices. Yet they aren't tagged as being a waste of someone's best years and not being afforded true happiness. To say there is no difference between the two would be absurd. But the implied distance between the two of them are driven more by societal norms than morality.
There's a difference between born gay and not knowing that you're gay though. My eldest didn't realise she was bi until she had dated a couple of guys and realised she was missing something in herself.
Are all divorcees immoral miscreants in your eyes?
Or maybe some people are just also thinking about his wife and kids, I don't know I'm just guessing, I'm really bothered about the 'story', but this seems a bit of a strong take imo.
No but the type that leaves someone like my aunt to bring up three children single handily because someone forgot to mention their truthful sexuality is in my eyes.
The Schofield situation isn't fully the same in my eyes but the fact people are high fiving him and lording him for being brave is a joke.
Brave is admitting it 40 years earlier to his family and friends.
Would you not say it’s commendable that by all accounts he stood by his vows and supported his family for 27 years rather than ditching them when they were young?
Oh, come on - plenty of people have to work with Eamonn Holmes too.
Commendable? That's his duty
He's come out, fair play to him and im glad he doesn't have to live something that isn't true to him.
But his journey to self realisation took quite a while to conclude, and its dragged in his wife who now will have to deal with the remnants of her life.
Good for him. Shit for her. That's reality.
So sorry if I don't participate in some kind of celebration of his new found life and happiness.
But his journey to self realisation took quite a while to conclude, and its dragged in his wife who now will have to deal with the remnants of her life.
Good for him. Shit for her. That's reality.
So sorry if I don't participate in some kind of celebration of his new found life and happiness.
I’ve always found it commendable when people carry out their duty as they promised they would.
I agree with the sentiment, of course. But it shouldn't be used to balance a scale in this context.
Well it depends on the narrative and paradigm you wish to view this through.
Do you know how his wife feels about it?
I don't, I'm going based only on what anyone of us can possibly possess in these situations. Empathise.
I know how it would affect my wife if I suddenly came to this.
Sexuality doesn't absolve responsibility from what YOU have actively created.
Pretty much this. All for Schofe feeling empowered etc., but what a shit situation for his wife. Facing questions as to whether 30 years of marriage have been a lie and the twilight of her years possibly on her own.
Poor woman.
No because of the emotional effect it has on the women, there are a lot of injured parties in this situation.
How can a women trust again after giving so much and being told everything you did was a waste of time.
You've given up 10, 20, 30 years of your life to be told you've wasted those years of love and affection. In my aunts case 20 years.
Its humiliating, my aunt couldn't face her family for a period of time through the fact she believed we all knew or suspected but we didn't.
This is nothing to do with sexuality, I'm not homophibic in any way or form, it's the lies that are involved and the pain it causes.
I think you’re looking at Schofield’s situation through the prism of emotion of your experience of your Aunt‘s situation.
In truth we know absolutely nothing about Schofield and his family’s feelings throughout this so it’s daft to make assumptions and get angry on their behalf.
Bet it was having to listen to that 80 year old talking about getting riddled by her 35 year old Egyptian toyboy that turned him.
Yeah. Just you seemed pretty sure on the 'reality' of it.
I really don't see it as much different than two people who grow apart and fall out of love and think it's quite possibly a lot more managable than a very acrimonious or abusive breakup.
I'd imagine it's devastating for her and their children in a certain sense. But ultimately if your husband/best friend/ soulmate had been struggling with something of such profound personal significance and was open and honest about it there's not a huge margin for anger in my opinion, you can't change how someone feels and the argument that he should have known this 30 years ago holds little water and totally simplifies how we all can struggle with identity, sexuality, mental health or indeed simply section off a part of our selves for a long time to protect other parts of our lives (that we value more) I absolutely reject the idea that he has cheated her of years of 'true' marriage or life and lead a lie, it's a ridiculously simple way to look at it I think.
Of course if he was consistently unfaithful or disinterested or a poor husband as a result of his feelings he deserves blame, but I don't sense that to be the case.